Your Right to Know

A
little more than a year ago, Gov. John Kasich declared that he would spend less than his
predecessor on the employees who report to him.

By several measures, Kasich kept his word in 2011. But because no administration is staffed
exactly the same way, and because the Kasich administration will no longer provide the data to draw
a full comparison, it is difficult to prove whether less is being spent on Kasich’s entire
team.

Sensitivity surrounding governors’ staff salaries was sparked just as Kasich took office, when
it was learned he would pay several of his top aides far more than Gov. Ted Strickland paid people
in the same positions. Most notably, Kasich chief of staff Beth Hansen was to be paid about $47,000
a year more than Strickland’s chief, John Haseley.

Kasich defended his office salaries at the time, saying he would run his operation at a lower
cost than Strickland did.

A
Dispatch review of the Department of Administrative Services’ online database of biweekly
pay periods for 2010 and 2011 shows that Kasich spent about $2.1 million on “governor’s office”
employees last year — an 8 percent savings from the final year of the Strickland
administration.

But the comparison is muddied by a number of factors, including the fact that Kasich was sworn
in on Jan. 10, 2011, (halfway into the year’s first pay period) and took almost two months to fill
out his staff.

Also complicating the matter is the temporary transfer of staff members to campaigns, whether it
was Strickland’s re-election effort in 2010 or Kasich’s attempt to save Senate Bill 5 last
year.

Different snapshots of the two governors’ payrolls in 2010 and 2011 paint a nuanced picture of
spending.

For example, once Kasich’s staff could be reasonably considered complete — beginning with the
Feb. 26 pay period, when his staff grew from 29 to 38 employees — Kasich’s team cost 4 percent less
than Strickland’s through the end of the year. Kasich’s office averaged 35.7 employees every two
weeks, with a combined salary of $86,139 since Feb. 26. Strickland averaged 39.15 employees in
2010, with combined pay of $89,074.

And while Kasich never had more employees than Strickland during any single pay period, on
several occasions the Republican spent more than the Democrat did.

For example, during the pay period ending Aug. 13, Kasich spent $96,606.80 on 36 employees,
compared with Strickland’s $86,480.21 on 40 employees for the period ending Aug. 14, 2010. Kasich
also spent more than Strickland for each pay period from Feb. 26 through May 7, for a total added
cost of $19,510.

“We’re glad to be, over the course of our first year, costing taxpayers less, and we’ll continue
to be tight-fisted with taxpayer money,” Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said.

“Regardless, whether we come in a few bucks higher or lower, it is ultimately about getting the
job done and taxpayers getting a good return on investment. Through our first year, we are up
40,000 net jobs in the state.”

The Kasich administration has recently changed how it explains staff salaries and that is
drawing fire from critics.

As the debate over salaries began to heat up early last year, Kasich released multiple projected
payroll lists containing up to 75 positions, including employees considered under the “governor’s
office” and others who are paid out of other departments’ budgets but reported to Kasich.

His administration also released a list from Strickland’s last year in office for what team
Kasich said was an apples-to-apples comparison, and argued that Kasich would spend less than
Strickland did based on that list.

Kasich officials now won’t produce an updated list, saying that they would have to create it,
and state law doesn’t require public officials to create documents that don’t exist.

Nichols instead directed
The Dispatch to the Department of Administrative Services website to determine salaries.
But that website does not delineate which employees report to Kasich but are paid from other
budgets.

“It’s a break not only from standard practice, but a break from what Gov. Kasich did early on,”
said Janetta King, president and chief executive officer of Innovation Ohio, a liberal nonprofit
policy group, and former deputy chief of staff for Strickland.

“It raises concerns about what he’s hiding. For whatever reason, he feels it’s a liability to
release who’s working for him.”

There are pieces to the puzzle that can’t be solved without some roster from Kasich detailing
whom he counts among his broader list of employees.

For example, Jai Chabria, a senior adviser to Kasich who was paid $147,063, according to the
Administrative Services site, is listed under the Commerce Department. Matt Carle, Kasich’s
legislative director, made $101,417 while listed under the Office of Budget and Management.

Without knowledge of Kasich’s office, an outsider wouldn’t know Chabria and Carle were reporting
to Kasich.

Governors have moved employees around in departmental budgets routinely, at least since Richard
F. Celeste was governor. Strickland, for example, paid several of his deputy policy advisers out of
different departmental budgets and listed legislative director Louis Capobianco ($81,328) under the
Office of Budget and Management.

Nichols provided an updated count of Kasich’s broader employee spending ($4,982,992) compared
with Strickland’s ($5,009,431), but declined to show which Kasich employees were included in the
count.

A review of the Administrative Services website also shows Kasich paid his cabinet members about
$2.95 million from Jan. 29 through the end of 2011. Strickland paid his cabinet $3.04 million over
the same period in 2010.